Grayson Perry does it again

“Grayson Perry to build holiday home 'shrine' to Essex everywoman

Turner prize-winning artist wins planning approval for holiday home which pays homage to mythical woman called Julie”

According to this Guardian article Grayson Perry has been granted permission to build a rather different kind of holiday home. Perry, one of my favourite artists, who is always willing to go into very interesting directions has come up with this wonderful idea. So if you fancy a holiday in Essex in what looks a bit like a gingerbread house then Grayson has the answer to your dreams.

 

 



Bodgit & Scarper

One of the most important economic drivers in this country is the house building industry. If you build houses people spend money when they move in. The more houses you build the more money the new residents spend on their new houses.

If the government were serious about economic growth they would be investing in house building.

If the government was serious about house building they would make sure that Britain had a credible and quality driven house building industry.

The house building industry in quality build terms is the equivalent to British Leyland in the 1970s. Shoddy is the order of the day. I know I live in a brand new property. Oh how I wish that Honda built houses.

People need to stand on their own two feet!

Amongst the narrow-minded rich and middle-classes there is a concept of the undeserving poor. The idea that those at the lower end of the income and wealth spectrum are all feckless and lazy continues to pre-occupy those that can only think in black and white. Sadly what most of them fail to grasp is that if we had some fairness in society, a level playing field that truly put us on the road to genuine equality, then less of what they see as government hand-outs would be necessary. Incidentally I've always thought that in the main 'those on benefits are living a life of luxury in abject splendour' is a myth that is as far from the truth than it could possibly be. And before you offer up examples about so-and-so who's never done a day’s work in their life base your utterances on pure fact rather than supposition.

 

If people are to work and ‘pay their way’ in the world society needs to get real. Those misinformed Daily Mail* readers et al need to understand that there are no quick fixes and that some fairness needs to be applied. There are far too many forelock-tugging cretins spouting things like “there’s plenty of jobs about, they just don’t want to work” etc. etc. For a start there are more unemployed people than jobs to go round and of the few jobs that there are so many are far too poorly paid. Society seems to accept employers exploiting many many workings with the same indifference with which it accepts the obscenely overpaid people at the top.

 

In principle I’m not agin the notion that people should provide for themselves economically. Although I would always be concerned that there were enough safeguards in society to provide for those unfortunate enough to not be capable of doing so. But if we are to enable more people to provide for themselves and not have to suffer the indignity of relying on the welfare state a very simple framework of provisions will need to be put in place. Those will include:

 

• Decent affordable housing for all (the most important foundation for a stable life-style)
• Affordable transport for all
• Free Numeracy and literary skills courses for adults
• Relevant training schemes for those looking for work
• A living wage as the very minimum for any job
• Enough jobs to go round

 

 

 

 

*the paper that supported Hitler

A moving story

After two years of trying we have finally moved permanently to Norwich; our house in Bury St Edmunds sold a month ago, our matchbox of a rented flat in Norwich went last week, and we are now exclusively and firmly ensconced in our new singular abode. Boy are we relieved. Living in two places is no fun.

We have gone from a three bed 1930s semi to a modern maisonette and the moving experience has been akin to fitting a quart into a pint pot. The feeling that we had been moving forever was also upon us. There were dark days when it seemed as if we would never be settled, but thankfully it all came good in the end. It is all still very much living out of cardboard boxes but we are moving forward.

The pain and the stress of moving has meant that I’ve not blogged for some while. This situation has been exacerbated by that well know bunch of shysters that masquerade as a telecoms company, namely BT. BT currently standing for British Telecom, when it should really stand for Bastard Twats!

My telecom hell is detailed in my letter of complaint below:

Dear Sirs,

I have been appalled and upset by the shoddy treatment and total lack of customer service that I have received from your company recently. Here is the catalogue of your failings:

● We advised you that we were moving house and that we wanted to move our line. You gave us a date of 4/12/09 and a time of between 8am and 1pm saying that someone needed to be on the premises during that time implying that a BT engineer would arrive to connect the line and that we would be fleeced ┬ú122.03 for the privilege. Just before 1pm, rather frustrated that no one from you organisation had arrived I called to find out what was going on. Rather arrogantly I was told that the line had been moved without the need to send out an engineer. The line was not working, and I had wasted five hours because you can’t be bothered to keep your customers informed.


● After spending 23 minutes on my mobile trying to point out to your fault service that there was no line to my flat I was told that an engineer would be with me between 1pm and 6pm the next day (5/12/09). At every opportunity I stressed that this was a new build and that I suspected that the wrong flat had been connected. On the 5/12/09 I waited in for five hours. Guess what? No engineer turned up!


● On Monday, when I had access to a land line I phoned to complain/find out what was going on. I was told that the engineer turned up and that no one was at home. I understandably hit the roof. The BT story then changed to ‘the fault was closed’ and, which is the biggest insult, ‘I would be credited the missed visit charge’ - Oh how generous! - I continued to stress that this was a new build, that it had probably been connected to the wrong flat and that someone needed to actually get in a van and come out to us. I was assured that this would happen on 11/12/09. Why did I believe what BT was telling me, when I should have known that it was a lie?


● 11/12/09 arrived, BT didn’t!


● The 11/12/09 is my wife’s birthday. We planned to go out to lunch to celebrate but cancelled because we were keen to get the telephone line sorted. Another 5 hours wasted and my wife’s birthday ruined, and again no real reason given for why BT had failed yet again. Clearly at this point I was getting very agitated and managed to get through to a supervisor that did actually start to help. The best that she could offer me was another 8am to 1pm appointment the next day 12/12/09. I was told that it couldn’t be any narrower a window than that but that she would try and make it a priority.


● 12/12/09 arrived, and the first hour passed, but no sign of BT. I phoned to speak to the supervisor and after much agitation I was told that the job had been issued to an engineer. He turned up and the problem was sorted quite quickly - the line had not been connected up to the correct property (what a surprise) - by 11.30am we had a working phone


This is some of the worst service that I have ever experienced from any organisation. I suspect that it is only the fact BT is a near monopoly that keeps you in business, as it certainly isn’t anything to do with the way you treat your customers. This might come as a shock to you but contempt is not an effective sales tool. Not that anyone will care but we were considering switching to one of your broadband/television packages. As you can imagine, that won’t be happening now. We also intend to switch phone providers as soon as possible.

To sum up:

● BT has cost us a great deal of time and money - please see the invoice herewith
● BT caused us a great deal of stress - not good for two people with high blood pressure
● We had to wait in for a total of 18 hours
● I had to top up my mobile twice (┬ú20 total) to report this ongoing problem
● BT staff are very quick to tell the customer at every available opportunity what BT will charge in the likely event that it is the customer to blame.
● At no time (apart from the 12/12/09) did you even consider keeping me informed.

BT YOU HAVE FAILED BIG TIME!

Rearrange the following words to form a popular phrase to describe BT:

‘arrange’ ‘brewery’ ‘couldn’t’ ‘BT’ ‘piss-up’ ‘a’ ‘in’ ‘a’


Yours faithfully,

P Garrard

Not having a phone connection meant that I could not arrange for my broadband to be moved (as it is with Orange). Last night it returned. Oh happy days!

I’m not holding my breath over even getting a reply from them let alone paying my invoice, but we shall see.

Council Houses

I’m no economic expert, and I’m most aware that there are never easy answers to economic crises, but I am concerned that the government are being awfully quiet about something that I feel could make a bit difference.

I think that it is well accepted that the current woes have been brought about by personal debt, in the western world, being out of control. Fuelled by property prices and people’s desire to own, banks and other lending institutions have sort to make huge profits by making credit easier to access. Thus helping to maintain the upward movement of property prices a Catch 22 situation! That is until it all came crashing down around everybody’s ears.

Given that, in our present system, housing is the principle driver in economic growth, I would have thought that a house building programme was essential at this moment in time to stave off the worst of the effects of the recession. Also given the current shortage of mortgages and the reluctance of people to borrow we can in no way rely on private house building to make much of a contribution. There are, as far as I can see, three very good reasons (I’m sure there are many more actually) for increasing the number of houses built. These reasons are both moral and economic, and they are:

There is a housing shortage

It would keep building workers in employment and retain those skills in the system

New homes means that people by new things to go in them, thus upping consumer spending.

If the private sector can’t deliver on housing what would be so wrong with the government financing a major council house building programme?

They are throwing money at so many other things and they have stated that they intend to fund public projects, so building houses would have such a beneficial effect on the economy. Schools and hospitals are important and I wouldn’t want to give the impression that they should not be built at all, but I do think housing should be at the very top of the list. I also believe that we should not be spending money on building offices or new council chambers or any other so called 'prestige’ projects.

A return to having a decent council housing stock, as well as having economic benefits, would also have social ones. If you treat people well they will respond to that treatment. It won’t be a universal panacea. You can’t solve society’s ills with just one initiative, but it would be a good start. Society, broken by Thatcherite policies, will take a long time to heal. This could help with repairing the damage.

Council house upbringing

Stasis

This week's news on the housing market told us what we already knew; houses just ain't selling at the moment. Our house has been on the market since the beginning of September. It is in what we know to be 'a desirable part of town'. Yet we have only had four viewings. I'm not a big lover of estate agents, I think you pay an awful lot for not a lot, but I feel confident that our current agents have worked as hard if not harder than most around. There seems to be a lack of confidence, first time buyers seem to have gone away. Consequently the market is stagnating. The time of year now doesn't help either. I suspect it could well be summer before we get to move to Norwich. Oh well!